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Notes

This work has a complex history. John Redd, apparently in response to a request from Lyman C. Draper, prepared a set of sketches of various persons whom he had known on the Virginia frontier. This document is item MS NN, Vol 10, of the Draper MSC.

Redd was born (1755) in Orange County, Virginia, removed to Henry (then Pittsylvania) in 1774, and was still living there when Draper heard of him in 1848. He wrote out for the great collector his own reminiscences, embracing the settlement of Powell's Valley (1776), the Cherokee campaign the same year, and many border incidents in which he had been a participant. After the Cherokee campaign, Redd re-enlisted under Brice Martin (1777-80), was wagon master for Gen. Nathaniel Greene (1781), a lieutenant at Yorktown, served in the Virginia legisiature (1795-96, 1798-99), and died in 1850. His recollections of Gen. Joseph Martin, George Rogers Clark. Daniel Boone, William Campbell the Shelby, family, the Bledsoes, Col. Benjamin Cleveland, Dr. John Walker, Col. John Montgomery, etc., show his wide acquaintance with border heroes.

At some point a partial copy of this document was made. Whether from the original in the Draper MSC, or as a copy of the material sent to Draper, is not known. A portion of this copy was found in the Collection of the Library of Virginia, and published as a series in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, volume's 6 and 7 under the title "Reminiscences of Western Virginia 1770-1790". (See Source:Redd, 1899. A portion of this work dealt with the life of General Joseph Martin, but the MSC used for the Virginia Magazine was incomlete, and only a portion of Redd's writing dealing with General Martin was available to them for publicaiton.

Dr. Stephen B. Weeks utilized various materials from the Draper Manuscripts in preparing his monograph on General Joseph Martin and the War of the Revolution in the West, printed in the Report of the American Historical Association for 1893. Week's papers came to the Southern History Association, who published the entire text of Redd's dicsussion of General Martin, plus additional materials related to Martin, also presumably from Week's papers. That publication, a multipart series published in 1903 over the course of four volumes of "Publications of the Virginia Historical Society", is the document here cited.

Subsequently, an othewise unpublushed manuscript of Col William Martin, son of General Joseph Martin, was discovered and printed in "Publications of the Southern Historical Society." This appears to be the original utilized by Waters, Redd, and Weeks. See:Source:Martin, William. 1900. A direct comparison of these various works could be helpful in straightening out the publication history.

More Notes

Found in: Clement, M. C. History of Pittsylvania County, Va. is John Redd's "Reminiscences" in which Redd says John Dillard was a grandson of Capt. Thomas Dillard, Sr. of Pittsylvania Co., and furthermore, Capt. James Dillard of